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Chapter 04
Job Analysis

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 Job Analysis

Job analysis is the systematic method needed to discover and describe

the differences and similarities among jobs – results in two products.
• A job description is the list of tasks, duties, and responsibilities that
make up a job – observable actions.
• A job specification is the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other
characteristics necessary for an individual to perform the job.
The description focuses on the job and the specification focuses on the
person.

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 Structures Based on Jobs, People, or Both

No matter the
approach, the
process begins by
looking at people
at work.
The underlying
purpose of each
phase of the
process remains
the same for both
job- and person-
based structures.

Access text alternative for this image.

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 Job Based Approach: Most Common

Job analysis is the systematic process of collecting information that

identifies similarities and differences in the work.
• Job analysis provides underlying information of an internal structure.
• It identifies the content of the job.
• This content serves as input for job descriptions, job evaluation, and
job structure.

These are the major decisions in designing a job analysis.

• Why are we performing job analysis?
• What information do we need?
• How should we collect it?
• Who should be involved?
• How useful are the results?

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 Why Perform Job Analysis?

Potential uses for job analysis have been suggested for every major
human resource function.
• Often the type of job analysis data needed varies by function.
• An internal structure based on job-related information provides both
managers and employees a work-related rationale for pay differences.
In compensation, job analysis has two critical uses.
• It establishes similarities and differences in the work contents of the
jobs.
• It helps establish an internally fair and aligned job structure.
The key issue is to ensure that the data collected are useful and
acceptable to the employees and managers involved.

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 Job Analysis Procedures

Job analysis usually collects information about specific tasks or

behaviors.
• A task is the smallest unit of analysis, a specific statement of what a
person does – such as answers the telephone.
• Similar tasks can be grouped into a task dimension – such as,
‘responsible for ensuring the customer receives accurate information.’
A group of tasks performed by one person makes up a position.
• Such as customer service representative.
• Identical positions make up a job.
Broadly similar jobs combine into a job family.
• Such as marketing, engineering, office support, or technical.
The U.S. federal government developed a step-by-step approach to
conducting conventional job analysis.

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 What Information Should Be Collected?

A typical job analysis starts with a review of information already collected

in order to develop a framework for further analysis.
• Job titles, major duties, task dimensions, and work flow information
may already exist.
• However, it may no longer be accurate.
• So the analyst must clarify existing information, too.

Generally, collect sufficient information to adequately identify, define, and

describe a job.
• The information is categorized as “related to the job” and “related to
the employee.”

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 What Information Should Be Collected? Job Data:
Identification and Content

Job titles, departments, the number of people who hold the job, and
whether it is exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act are all examples
of information that identifies a job.
• While a job title may seem pretty straightforward, it may not be.

Job content data involve the elemental tasks or units of work, with
emphasis on the purpose of each task.
• This is the heart of job analysis.
• In addition to emphasis on the task, the other distinguishing
characteristic is the emphasis on the objective of the task.
• Task data reveal the actual work performed and its purpose or
outcome.

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 What Information Should Be Collected? Employee Data

We can look at the kinds of behaviors that will result in the outcomes.
• Communication can be described with verbs, with the verbs chosen
related to the employee characteristics being identified.
• The Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) groups work information
into seven basic factors.
A more nuanced view of “communication” focuses on the nature of the
interactions required plus knowledge underlying them.
• Interactions are defined as the knowledge and behaviors involved in
searching, monitoring, and coordinating required to do the work.
• Some interactions are transactional—routine and some are tacit—
complex and ambiguous.
• Work content that involves more tacit interactions is believed to add
greater value than more transactional tasks.

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 What Information Should Be Collected? Level of Analysis

Job analysis terms are arranged in a hierarchy.

• The level at which analysis of a job begins influences whether the work
is similar or different.
• If job data suggest that jobs are similar, pay the jobs equally, if jobs are
different, the pay can differ.
Using broad, generic descriptions that cover a large number of related
tasks closer to the job-family level is one way to increase flexibility.

A countering view deserves consideration.

• A promotion to a new job title is part of the organization’s network of
returns.
• Reducing the number of titles may reduce the opportunities to reinforce
positive employee behavior.

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 How Can the Information Be Collected? Conventional
Methods

The most common way to collect job information is to ask the people who
are doing a job to fill out a questionnaire.
• An analyst may interview the jobholders and their supervisors to be
sure they understand the questions and that the information is correct.
• Or, the analyst may observe the person at work and take notes on
what is being done.
The advantage of questionnaires and interviews is that involvement of
employees increases their understanding of the process.
• However, the results are only as good as the people involved.
• Different people have different perceptions, which may result in
differences in interpretation or emphasis.
• The whole process is open to bias and favoritism.

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How Can the Information Be Collected? Quantitative Methods

Increasingly, employees are directed to a website where they complete a

questionnaire online.
• Such an approach is characterized as quantitative job analysis (QJA),
since statistical analysis of the results is possible.
• Jobholders assess items as related to their job and provide time spent
on each item.
Questions may be grouped around five compensable factors.
• Knowledge, accountability, reasoning, communication, and working
conditions.
Assistance is given in the form of prompting questions and a list of jobs
whose holders have answered each question in a similar way.

Quantitative inventories can be tailored to the needs of a specific

organization or to a specific family of jobs.

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 Who Collects the Information? In the past, organizations often
assigned the task to a new employee, as it would help them
become familiar with the jobs of the company.

• Today, if job analysis is performed at all, human resource generalists

and supervisors do it.
• The analysis is best done by someone trained for such analysis and
thoroughly familiar with the organization and its jobs.

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 Who Provides the Information?

The decision on the source of the data hinges on how to ensure consistent,
accurate, useful, and acceptable data.
• Expertise about the work resides with the jobholders and supervisors, so
they are the principal sources.
• For key managerial/professional jobs, supervisors “two levels above”
have been suggested as valuable sources – a strategic view.
• In some instances, subordinates and employees in other jobs that
interface with the job under study are also involved.
The number of incumbents per job from which to collect data will vary with
the stability of the job, as well as the ease of collecting the information.

Whether through a conventional analysis or a quantitative approach,

completing a questionnaire requires considerable involvement by
employees and supervisors – and can be expensive.

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 What about Discrepancies?

Supervisors may not know the jobs well, particularly if jobs are changing.
• People actually working the job may change it.
Differences in job data may arise among the jobholders.
• The best answer is to collect more data.
• Disagreements can be an opportunity to clarify expectations, learn
better ways to do the job, and document how the job is performed.

Top Management (and Union) Support Is Critical

• They know (hopefully) what is strategically relevant.
• They must be alerted to the cost of a thorough job analysis, its time-
consuming nature, and the fact that changes will be involved.
• If top managers (and unions) are not willing to consider any changes
suggested by job analysis, the process is not worth the time and cost.

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 Job Descriptions Summarize the Data

Job information has been collected, and organized but it must be

summarized in a format useful for HR decisions, including job evaluation.
• The summary of the job is the job description.
• The job description provides information on the tasks, people, and
things included with the job.
• A job summary provides an overview of the job.
• The section on essential responsibilities elaborates on the summary.
A final section lists qualifications necessary to be hired for the job.
• These are the job specifications that can be used as a basis for hiring.
• The summary needs to be relevant for pay decisions.

To avoid starting from scratch or as a way to cross-check externally, it can

be useful to refer to generic job descriptions that have not yet been
tailored to a specific organization.
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 Describing Managerial/Professional Jobs

Descriptions of managerial/professional jobs often include more-detailed

information on the nature of the job, its scope, and accountability.
• One challenge is that an individual manager will influence the job
content.
• These job descriptions must capture the relationship between the job,
the person performing it, and the organization objectives.
• Descriptions may focus on accountabilities rather than tasks.

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 Verify the Description

The final step in the job analysis process is to verify the accuracy of the
resulting job descriptions.
• Verification often involves the jobholders and their supervisors to
determine whether the job description is accurate and complete.
• The description is discussed, line by line, with the analyst, who makes
notes of any omissions, ambiguities, or needed clarifications.

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 Job Analysis: Bedrock or Bureaucracy?

If job analysis is the basis of human resource decisions, what are such
decisions based on if work information is no longer rigorously collected?
• This disagreement centers on the issue of flexibility.
• Many organizations are using fewer employees to do a wider variety of
tasks in order to increase productivity and reduce costs.
Generic job descriptions can provide flexibility in moving people among
tasks without adjusting pay.
• Traditional job analysis that makes fine distinctions among levels of
jobs has been accused of reinforcing rigidity in the organization.
In some organizations, analyzing work content is now conducted as part
of work flow analysis.
• As part of a work flow study, job analysis is conducted to understand
the work and how it adds value.

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 Job Analysis and Change in Work: Globalization and
Automation (Including AI)

Whether due to changes in technology, consumer preferences, or other

factors, the content of work continually changes and evolves over time.

Offshoring refers to the movement of jobs As firms work across

to locations beyond a country’s borders. multiple countries, there
is an increasing need to
• Historically, manual, low-skill jobs were
analyze jobs to either:
most susceptible to offshoring.
• Maintain consistency
• White-collar jobs are increasingly at risk.
in job content.
AI refers to algorithms that learn tasks by
• Or be able to measure
identifying patterns.
the ways in which jobs
• Least susceptible to automation are jobs are similar and
where social interaction is important. different.

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 Judging Job Analysis

• Reliability measures To be valid, acceptable, and

consistency of results among useful, job information must be up
analysts, methods, and sources, to date.
or over time. • Usefulness refers to the
• Validity examines the practicality of the information
convergence of results among collected.
sources of data and methods. Since work-related information is
Acceptability is also important. needed to determine pay.
• If workers are dissatisfied with • And differences in work
the data and the process. determine pay differences.
• They are unlikely to accept the • The real issue is how much
resulting job structure. detail is needed to make these
pay decisions?
• Or the pay rates attached to that
structure.

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